Goodbye
by Squadle
Summary: Goodbye Kumogakure. Hello Akatsuki.
1. Chapter 1 I've found you

**A/N: This chapter just recently had a serious makeover. I was rereading it, and found myself pathetic for thinking it was complete… I hope it is muuuuuuuch better now, for both my sake and yours.**

**Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto (wish I did) but I do own my oc, Kaiyou. **

* * *

_Even though some lives will be lost, we will go on living…_

A soggy sixteen year old lurched down an old muddy path to an unknown destination. Her white hair hung loosely in her eyes and allowed small droplets of water to fall lightly on her nose. Her clothes were wet and weighed down by the rain, causing her movements to become slow and even struggled; she was sometimes compelled to stop and breathe, taking a moment to look back over her shoulder at the disturbing train of thoughts she'd left behind. Even though her eyes were hidden by her hair, the obvious fear and unmarred sadness threaded into her expression were hard to miss.

She had just become a wanderer—a missing nin, but first, they had to torment her by taking away everything in her life that was precious. First, she lost her freedom.

* * *

"Higure Kaiyou, please step forward."

A heavy silence fell over the anxiously waiting cloud shinobi. A young girl—she was maybe thirteen years old—stepped out of the crowd and stood firmly before the ANBU troops that had announced her name. She glared impassively at the soggy ground, an expression of utter hatred and disdain plastered clearly across her face.

But in her heart, she felt an unwarranted amount of fear beginning to develop. Their eyes were burning holes into her back.

There were no adamantly placed hints of surprise, no utterances of horror, nor any traces of worry for her safety. "She is a one of them," they said. "She'll be better off away from the village."

The man who had announced her name handed her a scroll with her name written in delicate letters on it. "You are to report to the eastern gate of the city at sundown. You will receive further information there."

Of the seven others, Kaiyou was disappointed to find she the only girl. It didn't surprise her that her best friend Daisuke had been chosen either. They both knew it would happen. And they both knew they had no choice but to do as they were told.

They were greeted by another ANBU member this time—a shorter, somewhat fatter one. His voice presented fairly annoying in the least, but Kaiyou could do nothing to stop it. Were she to harm any of her superiors, they would undoubtedly have her killed.

She felt no need to risk her well being for the sake of another's comfort.

He presented each of them with their own, standard issue ANBU mask. Kaiyou felt heavy waves of resent towards the smiling cat face staring intently into her eyes. But after a moment, she followed in suit of the others, placing it on her face. The holes for eyes were barely enough to see out of. Her peripheral vision no longer existed.

Tch. How cheap.

The man, after a brief moment of silence, raised his voice and spoke again. "You seven will be sent to another training camp outside the village in preparation for the coming war. No mercy will be bestowed upon you. You will not be allowed to leave the camp unless permitted to by the Raikage, but chances of that are unlikely. Only time you'll be free is when you're on the battle field, but then, you'll just be following orders there too."

My, my. How…uplifting.

He paused, catching his breath. The seven recruits each held a look of shock, but found it vital to remain silent when the ANBU continued his speech. "Failure to cooperate," he said slowly, allowing the words to sink in, "will only result in your death."

In retrospect, Kaiyou would have very been grateful for death.

* * *

She still would have been grateful for it today.

Perhaps her life was a cruel game to those who were watching? They insisted on making her life the most miserable of all those who were born into this hell of a village… But she definitely did not agree with their sheepish way of forcing her to forage on through the dark, when there was no light at the end of her tunnel. Kaiyou wondered blankly if there would ever be any light for her to look foreword to in the future. As for now, that hope she so desired was so far out of reach, her fingers had given up long ago in their tentative steps towards the dream that was ripped away from her so cruelly.

"Do you think this is funny?!" she laughed maniacally at the sky, forcing her eyes to open wide in the rain. "Keep watching, you bastards… there is still more to come…"

Kaiyou knew then her mind was dangling on the brink of insanity.

_The sky is crying_, she told herself repeatedly. _Or it's weeping tears of joy_. Either way, she was grateful for the torrents of oncoming rain; it never failed to erase any trace of her existence. They thought she was dead, anyway.

But they hadn't killed her. They'd only managed to kill her best friend.

* * *

It wasn't raining yet, but the rumbling bellies of black clouds threatened to spill out over the land. As for the sun, it was well hidden by violent twinges remorse. Kaiyou felt no rays of sunshine when he stumbled into the medical tent; it just so happened she had arrived back from her mission the same time as he. Luck, the medics had called it. Blasphemy, she argued. The medics knew nothing about luck.

In her eyes, it was sheer stroke of coincidence.

The training camp was deserted for today, with the exception of her sobbing cries and his bleeding, freshly killed corpse.

Kaiyou cried openly over the body of her best friend. She stroked his blonde head gently, caressing his body and holding it close to her own. In her eyes, the medics couldn't have cared less about her dying friend. What was one more shinobi lost among the many who were already dead? He was just the ninja everyman, in their eyes.

In her eyes, the bleakness of her already depressing life had just hit an all time low.

By now, Kaiyou was a bloody mess. Staring at his pale face, she wished for a moment it was she who was dead, cold and unbreathing, as there was now nothing left for her in Kumogakure… But Daisuke, he had a family, friends and pure genius to keep him alive. Kaiyou could remember having something similar to that once before they had met, but now she could rely on nothing more than pure instinct to survive the heartlessness of the modern world. However, Kaiyou had managed to surprise herself by returning mission after mission in one piece, perhaps in some warped form of retribution for herself, her clan, and Daisuke. She knew they wanted her dead. Daisuke, on the other hand, was prized by the village in many ways more than one.

People had even gone as far to consider him a suitable candidate for the next Raikage.

She was nothing but a shadowy assassin.

He had been the first of them to go off to and fight as the favored assassin of the Raikage next to herself and her long dead father. The likelihood he would come back alive had been slim from the very start. They all knew that. But somehow he had managed, keeping alive only long enough to become lost in the memories of the oblivious villagers.

Kaiyou wished desperately on more than one occasion that it wasn't real, that it was just a nightmare, but she knew it was reality. A reality so cruel that all she could do was cry.

Ever since her esteemed father had been killed, the village had steadily begun to shun what was left of her pride. They'd ripped it to pieces, until all honor and faith she'd placed in those she sought to protect vanished within the blink of an eye. 

Her mother had never been anything more for her to rely on other than a fading picture in a broken frame. And her clan members… the majority of them had vanished with the coming shinobi wars. Of the few that remained, Kaiyou found little reassurance in their appearance other than the fact that they may have been able to keep their quickly fading clan alive.

However, her faith in them to do so was small. She felt a small chuckle arise at the very memory of her family.

That was when her village finally turned against her.

* * *

Even walking through the streets was hard enough on its own. The villagers had never felt a need to blunt their words for her sake; in fact, the only time she could recall ever been spoken to kindly was when her father was alive. Time had led Kaiyou to believe they must have enjoyed tormenting her day in and day out.

"You're nothing but a nuisance!" they'd yelled.

She would pretend not to notice.

"Go back to hell, you demon!" they'd said.

Okay, maybe their words hurt a bit.

"It's your fault Daisuke was killed!" they'd accused.

That was when they went too far.

And in truth, their words began to sting her more than any of the torture that she'd ever experienced. But there was nothing she could do to stop them. More than once Kaiyou had asked herself _why _she'd never found the heart to kill them, to stop the suffering—but her flimsy conclusions only made it worse, because they were the people she had vowed to protect. She'd promised her life to keep them safe.

After a while though, she realized that her vow had been made a long time ago.

In the long run, silly vows didn't matter anymore.

* * *

Kaiyou was now nothing more than an empty shell, destined to crash and burn on the path of life. She'd tried more than once to appease the needs of her fellow villagers, only to be pushed away and shunned as if she were some kind of monster. Their jinchuriki had been determined long ago, but that woman was far from an exile. She lived the life Kaiyou could only dream and hope for, praised as a hero and not a monster…

Pushed away. An outcast. A monster.

And finally, they managed to completely destroy her dream. Perhaps that was why the majority of her story was so pathetic. Her striving need for a dream had been crushed far beyond recognition.

And whan she'd finally done it, some part of Kaiyou finally crawled under a rock and died. She'd gone haywire and killed them all. Well, most of them anyway.

They'd pushed her and pushed her until karma had come back with full intentions of a hellish retribution. What did the whole of Kumogakure expect? Did they expect to be able to sit back and watch her allow them to continue with their prolonged amounts of torture? Kaiyou was certainly not stupid; that flaming need for revenge had been simmering beneath her skin for far too long. It was bound to overflow any day of the week; Kaiyou just couldn't find the time to unleash hell onto the wary people like she'd intended.

But oh, how it boiled.

The lightning was her power. It was her birthright. There was nothing in they world they could do to take that away from her.

She couldn't remember any details of the massacre either—her body had just been taken over by that all that pent up rage and Kaiyou had found herself killing all who got in the way of her path toward the village's exit. But there were no regrets of not being able to be a hero. Perhaps life as a killer was better suited for her naturally violent nature.

Kaiyou felt another hearty chuckle escape her lips when she remembered there was nothing she could do to stop that murderous rampage.

* * *

Very slowly, Kaiyou once again raised her head and stared into the rain, wishing, praying, that someone would come and kill her while they had the chance. Tomorrow, perhaps, she would find the courage to rid the world of her tainted existence. There was nothing left to live for anymore—there never was anything worth living for. Just memories. That was all she could think to live for.

What she would give to forget.

There was a slender cut on her cheek that bled profusely, staining her white hair and leaving a foggy trail of blood behind her. It was eventually washed away from the rain.

Observing her surroundings, Kaiyou found she was well away from the village. The mountain it sat on was well hidden by clouds, but that was not all that obscured her vision: indistinguishable from the rain, tears mixed with sadness and joy flowed freely down her cheeks.

_A tree, a flower, a river…_

* * *

Kaiyou slumped against a tree, utterly defeated by her own thoughts and actions. She was staring intently at the blood that had stained her hand. The cut on her cheek still hadn't stopped bleeding she'd left the village. It had healed temporarily, but immediately reopened after she'd taken up residence under a tree.

Perhaps it was the remnant of her curse.

She closed her eyes, but upon opening them, found shadow obscured her vision of the sky.

He bent over her, blond hair casting a faint yellow glow over his skin. His blue eyes lit up with a look of utter delight when he brushed her hair carefully away from her eyes. Kaiyou looked up slowly, staring blankly at this blonde haired intruder, eyes widening for a mere second. He resembled Daisuke so closely that for a moment she thought it was him, but the fresh memories of his death removed all hope that he could have possibly been alive. She was so intently focused on the man's appearance that barely noticed the ridiculous grin that crossed his face when he announced quietly, "I've finally found you, un."

* * *

**Soo… I'm finished and I will keep writing this when I get bored again. That will most likely be soon. XD**

**Hope you liked it! Reviews are most fun and appreciated!**

**(bangs head on desk) Never again shall I try to rewrite something! To painful!**


	2. Chapter 2 Sunrise

**I hoped to get this finished earlier, but bah… School sucks.**

**Thanks to my two reviewers! I really appreciate it!**

**Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto (wish I did) but I do own my OC, Kaiyou.

* * *

**

It had taken her a moment to realize that he was leaving, and soon Kaiyou stood and stumbled after the blonde haired man. He glanced back in her direction, blue eyes shining with mischief. He said nothing—but instead simply motioned with his hand for her to follow.

She made a strange observation of him, noticing the extra mouths that opened and closed precariously on the palms of his hand. His headband had a small streak through the symbol that was carved into the metal, and his black coat was adorned with finely sewn red and white clouds.

She followed at a safe distance, never once hesitating to reach for her katana when he turned his head as if to verify she was still there. She never once said a word.

-------

The sun appeared far in the distance, combing the land with orange and yellow rays of light that made the ice capped mountains glow with a hint of gold. Delicate wisps of clouds were stained with a bloody light. On this particular morning, the sun brought an ominous sense of dread that lingered above the trees and kept all morning birds silent.

The morning dew let off on Kaiyou's feet, creating a sticky layer of wetness on her skin that allotted twigs and grass to cling to her in an exceedingly uncomfortable manner. There was barely a path to follow through the trees; it was so unused and uncared for that the vines and grass had taken over the little bit of vulnerable dirt a long time ago.

It reminded her of home. The sound ninja had slowly trickled in as time went on, destroying the village from the inside out.

The sudden '_cawing'_ of a crow made her wake from her thoughts and realize that she was no longer walking. Her eyes had drifted into the bloody stillness of the sunrise.

Deidara, whose name she'd learned the previous day, was far ahead of her now, walking calmly with a strange, impish gait. It bothered her to see him walking with such confidence, when all she could manage was to shuffle her feet lazily on the ground. Her gaze drifted up to his straw colored hair and she wondered for the briefest moment, what he looked like without his ponytail. Perhaps less threatening?

Her eyes turned back to the ground, and she once again began to follow him silently, like she had been doing for the past two days or so. Time passed quickly when your mind was in a monotonous state of oblivion.

It wasn't long before the golden landscape became recognizable to her weary eyes. Previous shinobi missions had been conducted in this area; she just never realized this path even existed. It never once occurred to her that something so indifferent could exist in the world. A frown slowly spread across her face. She was indifferent. She was alive. And yet, it was still possible for her to exist… How was it…?

Kaiyou collided with a warm object and blundered backwards, realizing that Deidara had ceased walking. He was looking at her from the corner of his eye, a small smirk visible on his face. She instinctively reached for the hilt of her katana, revealing the beginning of the sharp blade. She had reason to be suspicious of him. She wasn't scared, but felt rather uneasy of his calm attitude.

"Relax, un," he said, holding up his hands for her to see he was holding nothing. The mouths on his palms made awkward chewing noises on their own will. She eased her katana back into place, and resolved to be more cautious when she follow him warily down the path.

"Wh…" she started, but glanced sadly back at the trail behind her. "Why… me…?" she finally managed to sputter out. A guise of sympathy appeared on Deidara's face and she noticed a small sigh escape his mouth, leaving her with an air of suspicion hovering around her head.

He remained silent for a moment, allowing her simple question to sink in slowly. He glanced back at her motionless body, and turned back to face the sun, which had risen a fair amount above the horizon of the distant mountains.

"Because," he finally answered vaguely. "Just because."

---------

The small flames danced up and down delicately on the thick logs of wood, illuminating Kaiyou's pale features and casting an eerie orange glow off her hair and skin. It barely lit their makeshift campsite, but the waning light was just enough to keep them both awake.

Her knees were tucked up under her chin and she gazed aimlessly into the fire. Deidara sat somewhere to her left, fiddling with something that caught her eyes once or twice, but it was unexciting watching him shape little grey blobs into various shapes and figures. The fire was a far more interesting subject.

She'd been in denial. She'd been pushed into it. She'd been hurt. That was what she decided once the weight of her transgressions came crashing down upon her shoulders. It hurt like nothing she'd ever felt in her life.

_No…_

Kaiyou must have killed dozens. The number could have huge by now, and it made her want to throw up because she was only fifteen. Most _normal_ girls didn't kill mercilessly without thinking. But she wasn't like any normal girl. She was a shinobi. She was a killer. It was in her blood.

_The birds…_

It was that realization that made her bawl like a newborn baby.

_The trees…_

There was no comfort for her either. Deidara merely glanced back at her with a look of concern, but he was no mother. He couldn't offer her the warmth and lovingness of a family that she needed. She had no mother to protect her; her parents were long gone, lost in the war that had claimed so many from their clan. Kaiyou was forlorn and lost in the world, and there was no one that could even begin to understand the pain that was tearing away at her young heart.

_All so peaceful…_

It wasn't long before she finally managed cried herself to sleep.

* * *

**I hope that was at least halfway decent… I can't really tell since it's like one in the morning…**

**Zzz…**


	3. Chapter 3 Breathing in the Dark

**Discalimer- Once again, none of the characters are mine except Kaiyou. yawns**

**SO TIRED…. MUST KEEP GOING….**

* * *

There was only animal coldness in her expression when Kaiyou raised her head from its dangling position between her knees. She found herself trembling only the slightest bit after deciding it was useless to even try and see through the blinding darkness of the cell. She was neither cold nor scared, but perhaps there was the smallest possibility to consider that she may have been going insane. But strangely enough, even thoughts of insanity struck no nerve of fear in her mind.

She noticed, after her eyes had adjusted a bit to the darkness, that there was a single flickering source of light coming from somewhere down the hall from outside her cell. It threatened to go out several times—but she realized the pathetic light source would make no difference in this darkness, even if it were to burn one thousand times stronger.

As far as she knew, there were several other isolation cells within the area around her own, but they were so significantly quiet that either there were no others in them at all or the people they contained were dead. She would rather have had it not been the latter. For some reason, death scared her. It always had.

Kaiyou found herself surprisingly considering death herself. She had no real defined ranking in her village, but as a shinobi she must have known more than two dozen ways to end her pitiful existence. But she was a coward. A coward that wanted to live.

Even through the barely lit barred door of the chamber she sat in, Kaiyou could recognize the likeliness of two shadowy figures, one of which was significantly taller than the other. The menacing weapon strapped to his back carried an ominous feel in itself, which made his presence appear even more frightening than he already was. She discovered, after raising her eyes slowly, that the shorter man carried no weapon despite the aura of hatred and power that her radiated around the small room.

It took her a moment to realize that the taller man had already spoken—his voice broke out over her ears with a cruel, raspy tone. "Kaiyou-san," he'd said dryly. "You have been called for."

Kaiyou could see a sadistic grin bending the flaky grey skin on his face, leaving her with a nauseating sense of disgust that made her insides churn. She felt her right hand twitch out of irritation; she greatly preferred the company of the dead mouse that lay opposite to her over these men. But she was without a doubt, deeply intimidated by their presence—their monstrous amounts of chakra and bloodlust left her nearly frozen stiff with fear. But the suffix at the end of her name—was she not just a lowly prisoner to them? After all, Deidara had lied to her, claiming his only purpose was to offer protection, when all he'd really done was lock her up in solitary confinement.

"Come on. Get up," the sharkman said gruffly, when she remained still after his first command. Despite her newly found anxiety, she felt no will to obey him at all. Her gaze carefully drifted upward after a moment of considering the circumstances, and she made the mistake of making eye contact with the easily recognizable Sharingan eye.

Kaiyou couldn't tell whether it was out respect or the hope that she would be killed that she stood abruptly. Her mind was beginning to swim with an array of horrible images—and to make the punishment worse, every single scene she was forced to act out was a crime she'd already committed. Her nightmares were being relived.

The sharkman chuckled softly at her short cry of pain, but she did nothing but stare at him, impassive and blank.

They led her down a dimly lit hallway, but now she could see the red and white designs amidst their long black coats. The flickering lights that hung from the walls spilled a pale yellow light over her pasty skin and white hair, making it no surprise that she took on the likeness of a ghost.

The men had no need for rope or restraints of any kind, partially because the exhaustion she felt was winning out over the fury that was tearing at her mind. Kaiyou was not unaware of her surroundings, but she did realize that the comfortable state of oblivion her mind was in was beginning to fill her heart with the ever so familiar presence of bloodlust. The stronger it became, the louder the pounding in her head became, but she didn't dare utter even the slightest muse of pain in their shadowy glowing presence.

There was a door—but the moment Kaiyou came face to face with the piercing glares of almost six other shadowy figures, she found each of them held an aura that was far more powerful than her own. None of them spoke, but the pressing darkness urged her to close her eyes and almost feel for even the smallest trace of hope with her mind, but doing so she could only be reminded to stand in the center of their half circle, alone.

"Kaiyou-san," one many finally announced from somewhere out in the darkness, but where exactly, she wasn't sure. When she opened her eyes to answer, she could see out of her peripheral vision the shadows of the Uchiha and the sharkman slinking into the darkness out of view.

The man's voice demanded a respectful audience from the entirety of the room, echoing off the walls with a deep, passionate sense of leadership. Kaiyou felt her sore, bruised muscles tense, as did she feel the attention of everyone around her shift to the commanding voice and his shadowy, dark form directly in front of her.

Their was a breathy silence among the figures that stood about her, until the rustling of cloth and a vicious snicker resounded from somewhere to her left. The red clouds became more apparent as her eyes adjusted to this dark lighting. She was correct. There were six other people, not counting the Uchiha or the sharkman. She noticed, much to her dismay, that each one of them was a man.

"Remove your headband," the voice echoed again, and without hesitation, she raised her arms to untie the small piece of cloth that was holding her white hair out of her eyes. She extended her arm, allowing the fabric to drape over the sides of her hand, revealing the reflective metal plate where her village's insignia was engraved.

She followed a silhouette with her eyes as is moved closer in her direction, removing what appeared to be a kunai from the recesses of his coat. After a moment of brief silence, a single fine scratch was created swiftly across the Hidden Cloud's symbol that was akin to the one on the Uchiha's. Among the shadows that surrounded her, the realization she made was mutual; she was now an official part of the Akatsuki.

* * *

**Time to make with the zzzzz…**

**Hope you liked it…**

**no enthusiasm**


End file.
